MTSU Volleyball Leaves Utah Winless

The Blue Raider volleyball team huddled Tuesday night in their season home opener at Alumni Memorial Gym. The team lost 3-1 against Southern Illinois.
Photo by Kyle Bates
MTSU Sidelines
Staff Photographer

By: Caleb Luketic// Contributing Writer

The Middle Tennessee volleyball team traveled to Logan, Utah over the weekend to take part in the Utah State Invitational. It was a weekend to forget for the Blue Raiders, who left Utah with three losses.

The Blue Raiders opened up the tournament against the host team, Utah State. The Blue Raiders were able to take an early lead, but Utah State rallied and won the first set.

The same miscues took hold in the following three sets, leading the Blue Raiders to a swift loss, three sets to one to The Aggies.

Middle Tennessee took on San Francisco next, a team they beat in their previous match up in 2013. The Blue Raiders jumped out to an early 11-6 lead in the first set, but the errors that haunted them on Friday, showed up again on Saturday.

San Francisco had a run of six straight points to take control of the set, five points of which were unforced errors by the Blue Raiders. The Blue Raiders seemed to lose all the momentum that they had brought into the match in the final two sets. San Francisco took the match in striaght sets 25-20 25-11 25-14.

MTSU came out strong in their final game of the tournament against Southern Utah. They played the Thunderbirds tight, but weren’t able to overcome their errors.

The Blue Raiders fell 25-23, 25-22, and 25-18, as they were swept for the second straight game to close out the Utah State Invitational.

UP NEXT – Middle Tennessee comes home to host the Middle Tennessee Invitational. The Invitational consists of Kansas State, VCU, Missouri State, Seattle and UAB. First game action gets underway at the AMG on Saturday September 12th as the Blue Raiders take on VCU at 12:30 p.m.